Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Government
and Politics
Democratization
Briefing Paper
ii
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iii
1989. In 1991 the Soviet Union itself broke up into new states, many of which began
as democracies. Electoral competition replaced various forms of authoritarian rule in
many African states in the early 1990s. (The timing of democratization in different
parts of the world can be compared by examining the lines for region in Graphs 1
6 below.) The beginning of the new millennium found somewhat competitive
electoral institutions in nearly two-thirds of the worlds 190 states, although only
two-thirds of these (around 44 percent of the total) provided their citizens with
sufficient substantive democracy to be called fully free.4
Preconditions of Democratization
Strictly speaking, there are no preconditions for introducing democracy. Any
political system can adopt elections as the means for choosing policymakers and
allow the civil and political rights that encourage meaningful participation and
competition. Each new democracy emerges from a unique setting. The emergence
reflects the particular commitments and concerns of its leaders and the citizens
who support them, as well as the specific issues at stake in the society. However,
two features of the setting in which the choice of regime is made greatly influence
the likelihood that the outcome will be democratization: the level of economic
development and the international environment of democracy.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pressures from the growing
urban working classes and middle class allies promoted democratization in newly
economically developing Europe and its former colonies. Later, these forces
continued encouraging the introduction of democracy as more countries developed.
But it also became clear that, however introduced, democracy could more easily be
supported in hard economic times in more educated and economically developed
societies.6 It is important to distinguish between short-term economic ups and
downs and the underlying nature of the economy and society. Economic
downturns, such as severe unemployment, can create some loss of support for
democracy, but seldom threaten its continuation in a modernized, economically
developed society. For these reasons, most economically developed societies today
are democracies, while authoritarian governments are more likely in less developed
societies.
leaders moved toward democratization. On the other hand, the victorious forces of
Britain and the United States imposed new democratic governments in Germany
and Japan, which had previously forced authoritarian control on the states they had
overrun.
More recent attempts by the United States and Britain to impose democracy
have been undertaken in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the successes of these
attempts are still very much uncertain, their examples provide excellent insight into
the challenges and necessary conditions for the implementation of democracy. The
physical task of the first nationwide voter registration in a large country provided a
major challenge in Afghanistan. Further, in both Afghanistan and Iraq security
concerns and terrorist bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations of political
officials threaten the very existence of free and fair elections. Security concerns also
hamper the presence of international monitors to validate the election. These
problems emphasize the importance of some rule of law necessary to achieve
even a procedural democracy.
Second, the prestige of democracy in the world has waxed and waned over
time, encouraged by outcomes of World War I and World War II and depressed by
the brutal accomplishments of fascist dictatorships in the 1930s. With the apparent
Soviet growth in the 1950s and 1960s, and the success of some military
dictatorships in the 1970s, regimes other than democracy seemed to promise faster
routes to prosperity. In the 1980s and 1990s, many nondemocratic regimes became
discredited, their political and economic models seemingly less successful. After
the fall of the Soviet Union, democracy became the only widely accepted symbol of
commitment to popular welfare; even most dictators claim it as an eventual goal,
Democratization Briefing Paper
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First Independence
Sometimes, independence follows a long struggle against the country that
has dominated it. In these cases, much depends on the values, skills, and
organization of those who have led the independence struggle. George Washington
refused to become a king after American independence. Nehru used the electoral
experience and organizational alliances of the Congress Party to set India on a
remarkable democratic journey. Other national heroes have not been so restrained,
distrusting potential opponents and turning their independence movement into a
one-party state or their guerrilla army into a military dictatorship.
At other times, the collapse or defeat in war of international empires has
turned independence over to unprepared successor states, whose new leaders have
little organizing experience. The weakening of the British, French, and Belgian
empires after World War II encouraged and strengthened independence
movements, which succeeded in introducing democratic institutions in many new
African and Asian states. But stabilizing these economically underdeveloped and
ethnically divided societies proved very difficult. After 10 years, few remained
democracies. Nigeria is one example; freedom in 1960 was followed by intense
conflict, and the First Republic was overthrown by a military coup in 1966. Most of
Eastern Europe states newly freed from Soviet domination in 1989 swept new
democratic movements to power, later encouraged by the prospect of membership
in the European Union. The fragments of the Soviet Union freed in 1991 have found
the democratic path far less certain.
10
The possibility of a professional role in the new democracy facilitates such pacts,
but eradicating long-term influence over policy, and thus fully achieving
substantive democracy, may be a difficult problem.
Severe economic problems, which can cause the authoritarian leadership to
lose confidence and unity, are also a cause of failure of personalistic
authoritarian regimes, held together by the personality and alliances of the
individual leader and his family, sometimes his tribe or clan. There are usually
enough resources to reward a narrow group of supporters in an economically
underdeveloped society. But the inability to pay soldiers and bureaucrats will
undermine the foundations of an authoritarian regime, making it vulnerable to a
combination of external pressure and opposition movements, as in Africa in the
1990s.9
A significant source of instability in personalistic regimes is the death of the
founder, who is typically unwilling to organize for an orderly succession. In such
cases, a democratization opportunity opens up. It will be affected by the underlying
economic development and international conditions mentioned above, but the
outcome often depends on negotiation between forces of reaction and reform. It
may be easier to bring about a democratic outcome in more prosperous,
homogenous societies, with greater equality of income.
Single-party authoritarian regimes, such as the Soviet Union, Mexico
(through the period of PRI domination), and China proved quite durable across the
lives of the founders and their successors. Their organization, penetration of the
society, and a unifying set of beliefs made it possible to recruit ambitious and
talented people into the party and to crush potential opponents before they could
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11
Outcomes of Democratization
What are the consequences of democratization? One issue concerns
democracy itself. Will it achieve democratic consolidation, creating a stable
political system in which all the major actors seeking political influence accept
democratic competition, citizen participation, and the rule of law? In a consolidated
Democratization Briefing Paper
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12
13
14
competition as the shaper of public policy. Wealthy interests can buy the votes of
legislators or the decisions of judges; small businesses purchase favorable
regulatory permissions; parents must pay low-level bureaucrats for free
immunization for their children. Public officials amass wealth in the midst of
widespread poverty. These procedural democratic regimes are sometimes called
illiberal or electoral or partial democracies to draw attention to
authoritarian elements and distinguish these systems from free, substantive
democracies.12 About a quarter of the countries in the world could be described as
partial or illiberal democracies. Russia is a country that in recent years has
introduced substantial constraints on democratic freedoms, especially of the media,
and been troubled by violence and corruption. Whether it is an example of illiberal
democracy or of electoral authoritarianism is disputed.
If democracy is successfully consolidated, are there other policy
consequences? The largest consequences are the most clearly documented.
Democracies are somewhat less likely to experience war, and democracies almost
never go to war with each other.13 Moreover, while procedural democracies can on
occasion be cruel to minority groups, even partial democracies are much less likely
to engage in mass murder of minorities or political opponents than are authoritarian
regimes. Both China (19661975) and Iran (19811992) are identified as countries
having encouraged or allowed mass killings of thousands of political opponents.14
Procedural democracies are more likely than authoritarian regimes to sustain rights
to citizens personal integrity, although full respect for these rights is not
guaranteed.15 (Also see the discussion in note 18 below about the relationship
between political rights and civil liberties.)
Democratization Briefing Paper
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15
16
17
18
Most
Democratic
12
11
Political
10
Rights and
Civil
9
Liberties
8
Great Britain
WORLD
6
Today's EU
5
4
3
2
1
Least
Democratic
0
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
Years
In contrast to Great Britain, Mexico is a country that began the 1970s as only
partially democratized with limited political rights and civil liberties. Elections were
consistently held during this period, but one party was always victorious: the PRI,
which controlled and manipulated the election process. The PRI first allowed an
opposition party to win a state election in 1989 and finally lost its majority in the
national legislature in 1997. It was not until the landmark election of 2000 in which
Vicente Fox was elected president that the PRIs 71-year monopoly over
presidential power ended.
An examination of Graph 2 below shows the dramatic democratic
improvement that has taken place in Mexico over the past five years. Graph 2 also
shows the experience of the rest of Latin America, which was clearly a part of
Samuel Huntingtons third wave of democratization. From the mid-1970s to the
Democratization Briefing Paper
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19
present, Latin America improved from a low score of about 6.5 to a high of just over
10. Mexicos democratization took place noticeably later than that of the rest of the
Latin American region, and today Mexico is slightly more democratic than the Latin
American average and much more democratic than the world as a whole. It is
perhaps too soon to be confident that Mexican democracy is fully consolidated and
will not experience reversals, but its achievement is impressive.
Graph 2: Mexico
Most
Democratic
13
12
2000 Presidential
election
11
Political
10
Rights and
Civil
9
Liberties
8
7
Mexico
WORLD TOTAL
Latin America
5
4
3
2
1
0
Least
Democratic
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
Years
20
21
Graph 3: Nigeria
13
Most
Democratic
12
1979 Military
dictator
transferred
10 power to
civilian
9 government
1999 Military
dictator
transferred
power to
civilian
government
11
Political
Rights and
Civil
Liberties
8
7
Nigeria
WORLD TOTAL
Africa
5
4
3
2
1983 Military
coup
1993 Military
leadership
annulled
elections
Least
Democratic
0
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
Years
22
Russia began losing rights and liberties in the late 1990s under Yeltsin. Journalists
were harassed, independent television networks were suppressed, and reporting on
the military conflict in Chechnya was severely limited. Since the transfer of power
to President Putin, Russia has remained stagnant at a score of 5, suggesting that
while elections are still taking place, Russia is not a consolidated, substantive
democracy. It is interesting to note that despite the initial divergence in democracy
between Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union, since 2000 their averages
are nearly identical. While the experience of Russia today is similar to that of the
rest of the former Soviet Union, it is less democratic than the world as a whole, and
far less democratic than the European Union countries, which are shown at the top
of Graph 4.
Graph 4: Russia
13
Most
Democratic
12
11
Political
10
Rights and
Civil
9
Liberties
Russian
independence
8
USSR/Russia
WORLD
Former Soviet Union
Today's EU
5
1985 Gorbachev
comes to power
4
3
2
1
1991 Dissolution
of Soviet Union
Least
Democratic
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
Years
23
24
Graph 5: Iran
13
Most
Democratic
12
11
Political
10
Rights and
Civil
9
Liberties
8
19781979
Revolution and
fall of the shah
Iran
WORLD TOTAL
Middle East
5
4
3
2
1
Least
Democratic
0
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
Years
Over the past 30 years, China has also been generally repressive and
undemocratic. As clearly shown in Graph 6, Chinas score has ranged from the
lowest possible score of 1 to a high point of just 3. After the death of Mao Zedong in
1976, economic reformers gained control of the Communist Party. The rise of Deng
Xiaoping, one of the most prominent of these reformers, brought about a slightly
less repressive period in Chinas recent history. Deng actually approved and
implemented many of the demands by the protesters that were written on the
Democracy Wall. During the period from 1978 to 1989, there were three waves of
protests, which were all illegal, but were also linked to reformers and reform
movements within the government. Popularly elected village committees were
introduced in 1987 and continue today, providing Chinese citizens some experience
with political competition, although the degree of local democracy seems to vary
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25
greatly.23 Political liberalization at the national level ended abruptly in 1989 when
protesters in Tiananmen Square were brutally massacred by a government fearing
for its survival. It was at this point that many moderate reformers within the
government were forced out, and the pace of political reform was dramatically
reduced. The Asian region, shown in the middle of Graph 6, contains a great variety
of regimes, including authoritarian regimes such as Pakistan and North Korea and
substantive democratic regimes such as Japan and, recently, South Korea. Its
average has consistently been below that of the world total, but China has
consistently remained among the least democratic Asian systems.
Graph 6: China
13
Most
Democratic
12
11
Political
10
Rights and
Civil
9
Liberties
1978 Deng
Xiaoping becomes
new paramount
leader
8
7
China
WORLD TOTAL
Asia
5
4
3
2
1
Least
Democratic
0
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
Years
26
27
If the past is any guide, much will depend on worldwide economic and
international conditions. Continuing advances in education and economic
development would help consolidate democracy in Latin America, Central Europe,
and Asia. Such development gains are desperately needed to encourage and
consolidate democracy in Africa and the former Soviet Union countries. The fate of
internationally and regionally powerful countries will have an additional effect on
democratization or democratic consolidation of their neighbors. For this reason, the
outcomes of democratization in Russia, China, Nigeria, and Iran have implications
outside their own borders. Moreover, the new worldwide trends in international
security and trade affect many nations. It is more difficult to sustain democratic
liberties when confronted by international terror. Other unforeseen threats will no
doubt emerge. Against these it will be up to citizens and leaders in current
democratic regimes to discover responses that protect their security and prosperity
without threatening democracy itself. Because democratic regimes are founded on
the principle of responsiveness to citizens, those citizens bear responsibility for
defending their freedoms.
Illiberal democracy
International environment of democracy
Military coup
Military authoritarian regime
Personalistic authoritarian regime
Procedural democracy
Rule of law
Single-party authoritarian regime
Substantive democracy
Waves of democratization (three)
28
For a discussion of the conceptual issues, see David Collier and Steven Levitsky, Democracy with
Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research, World Politics 49 (1997): 430451. For
specific classifications and discussions of the dividing line between electoral democracy and
electoral authoritarianism, see Larry Diamond, Andreas Schedler, Steven Levitsky and Lucian Way,
and Nicolas Van de Walle, Elections Without Democracy? in Journal of Democracy 13 (2002): 2180.
Some scholars also include any greater economic equality, increased education, or expansive
welfare policies in their conception of substantive democracy. Here we attempt to limit our
conception of substantive democracy to rights and freedoms that can directly create more equal
political relations between citizens and with their governments. However, extreme social and
economic inequalities in a society can limit the quality of democracy. See the articles in Journal of
Democracy 15 (October 2004) discussing various elements in the Quality of Democracy.
Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).
Adrian Karatnycky, The 1999 Freedom House Survey: A Century of Progress, Journal of
Democracy 11 (January 2000): 187200.
However, sometimes the greater economic resources may at least for a time help sustain a
dictatorial regime against such demands.
Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971);
Adam Przeworski et al., Democracy and Development (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000):
ch. 2; Carles Boix and Susan C. Stokes, Endogenous Democratization, World Politics 55 (July 2003).
Barbara Geddes, What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years, Annual Review
of Political Science 2 (June 1999): 115144.
Michael Bratton and Nicholas van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions
in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
10
Larry Diamond et al., eds., Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Press, 1997).
11
Among many examples are Juan Linz, The Perils of Presidentialism, Journal of Democracy 1
(1990): 5169; Matthew S. Shugart and John M. Carey, Presidents and Assemblies (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1992); Przeworski, Democracy and Development (2000): ch. 2.
12
As explained above, analysts are somewhat divided in their use of these terms and their
application to incomplete, procedural democracies or to authoritarian systems with some
competitive elements. Sometimes political systems with some democratic elements and severe
flaws are called hybrid regimes.
13
The political science literature showing that democracies do not fight each other is very large. See,
for example, Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1993).
14
Barbara Harff, No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? Assessing Risks of Genocide and Political
Mass Murder Since 1955, American Political Science Review 97 (February 2003): 5774.
29
15
Steven C. Poe, C. Neal Tate, and Linda Camp Keith, Repression of the Human Right to Personal
Integrity Revisited: A Global Cross-National Study Covering the Years 19761993, International
Studies Quarterly 43 (1999): 291313.
16
Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
17
Przeworski, Democracy and Development (2000): chs. 3, 5; on indirect effects, Yi Feng, Democracy,
Governance, and Economic Performance (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003).
18
The Freedom House political rights and civil liberties scores are estimated by a team of 30
writers/analysts and senior-level academic advisors, in consultation with regional experts. The
political rights score is based on a checklist of 10 items spread across three categories, each of
which is evaluated on a scale from 0 to 4. The categories on the political rights checklist are electoral
process, political pluralism and participation, and functioning of government. Items on the checklist
include: Is the head of state and/or head of government or other chief authority elected through free
and fair elections? Is the government accountable to the electorate between elections, and does it
operate with openness and transparency? Do cultural, ethnic, religious, and other minority groups
have reasonable self-determination, self-government, autonomy, or participation through informal
consensus in the decision-making process? In a practical sense, it would be almost impossible to
receive a mediocre score on political rights without at least a procedural democracy and impossible
to receive a perfect score without a substantive democracy. The ratings on political rights and civil
liberties are closely related, and the scores rarely diverge by more than a few points. By examining
the items on the civil liberties checklist, the reason for the similarity in scores becomes readily
apparent. The civil liberties checklist includes 15 questions spread across four categories; again,
each item is rated from 0 to 4. The four categories on the civil liberties checklist are freedom of
expression and belief, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and personal autonomy
and individual rights. Some of the items on the civil liberties checklist include: Is there freedom of
assembly, demonstration, and open public discussion? Is there an independent judiciary? Are there
free and independent media and other forms of cultural expression? Is there equality of opportunity
and the absence of economic exploitation? The categories and items included in the civil liberties
checklist are vital for a substantive democracy. Without rule of law, freedom of the press, and the
other vital freedoms it includes, it would be impossible to hold free and fair elections. The Freedom
House Organization then uses the scores on these checklists to establish ratings from 1 to 7 on
political rights and from 1 to 7 on civil rights, so that possible total scores range from 2 to 14. Under
their system, the lower scores represent the highest levels of freedom. For the sake of clarity in this
paper, we have reversed the scores, so that the combined scores range from 1 to 13, with high scores
representing the greatest level of freedom and democracy. It is worth noting that in the middle
range, what appear to be identical scores in two different countries can, in reality, mean the
availability of a very different range of rights available to its citizens. The independence of the media
and absence of an independent judiciary in one country and a fully independent judiciary and statecontrolled media in another might appear identical in these combined scores. Further, it should be
noted that there have been minor methodological changes in the score calculations over the more
than 30 years since its creation. It is because of these minor methodological changes that there
appear to be minor variations in scores, where no actual changes in rights and freedoms on the
ground have taken place.
19
The scores are for Great Britain only and explicitly exclude Northern Ireland, which Freedom
House rates separately, although both are part of the country called the United Kingdom. According
to Freedom House, the one point decline after 1989 reflects only a methodological adjustment.
20
Robert Mundt and Oladimeji Aborisade, Nigeria, in Gabriel Almond et al., Comparative Politics
Today (New York: Longman, 2003): 712.
30
21
There are great differences in democratic achievement from country to country among these new
nations. The three Baltic countries, which have now become part of the European Union, are
counted in this graph in the European Union average, not in the former Soviet Union average.
22
Nikki R. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2003).
23
Melanie Manion, The Electoral Connection in the Chinese Countryside, American Political
Science Review 90 (1996): 73648.
31